WELSH-BASED insurer Admiral has become the latest company to open a call centre overseas.

WELSH-BASED insurer Admiral has become the latest company to open a call centre overseas.

The company, which employs 1,500 staff at offices in Cardiff and Swansea confirmed yesterday that it has opened an office in Cape Town, South Africa.

The office, which opened about two weeks ago, employs 30 staff, but may increase in size if it proves a success.

The South African office will handle renewals inquiries - Admiral already has a centre in Bangalore, in India, which handles customer service inquiries.

Admiral Insurance communications manager Lousia Scadden said the decision had been made to open the call centre in South Africa because of difficulties in recruiting Welsh staff to work late shifts.

But she said the move would not affect the company's Welsh operations, emphasising that Admiral is currently recruiting in Wales.

"The only way it affects our offices in Cardiff and Swansea is to reduce the shifts," she said.

"One of the main reasons that people leave us is that they find the shifts difficult for them."

She said Welsh staff will still get the same salary but they will not work beyond 6pm or at weekends.

"The late shift is a difficult one for recruiting staff," she said.

"Every year in our staff survey it is clearly indicated that this is a problem for staff and we wanted to do something to help."

She said that the South African call centre had made a good start.

"It has only been opened about two weeks and we sent members of staff out there to train the people in the call centre so that they are to the same standards," she said.

"We constantly have someone out there from Admiral monitoring it.

"So far it is looking very good."

She said any decision to expand the South African operation would depend on how well it performed.

"It is as a test for six months because we have got to ensure we maintain high standards," she said.

"It depends on how well it goes over the next six months."

Admiral is the sixth largest UK insurance company and in August this year posted an impressive set of results.

Admiral was in 1999 named The Western Mail's Welsh Business of the Year.

Its American chief executive Henry Engelhardt was named the paper's Business Achiever of the Year last year.

In the first six months of 2003 the company increased revenue by 13% on the previous year.

The company expects full-year pre-tax profits of around &#xA3;60m compared with &#xA3;55m last year.

Admiral's move to South Africa is part of a wider trend of services to UK customers being provided from overseas. Staff at other companies have been less fortunate then Admiral's employees with jobs being lost as services are transferred to Asia.

This week Norwich Union announced that it was closing its claims centre in Cardiff with the loss of 100 jobs.

On Wednesday Serco, which employs 420 staff in Cardiff, was told it had lost its National Rail Enquiries contract amid concerns that the service could also be operated from overseas.